My dear friends,
1st November is All Saints Day, when we celebrate all of God’s saints – not just the well known ones, such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Laurence, St George and so on, but all the saints throughout the ages, including the very many men and women whose sanctity is known to God alone.
I tried the other day to compose a little list of characteristics common to saints. It is far from easy, because all sorts of people have been saints: single people, married people, divorced people, parents, children, monarchs, martyrs, clergy, monks and nuns, and so on.
There are some features, though, which seem to crop up quite often, so I mention them, in no particular order.
Firstly, there is often something unusual about the births of saints. Perhaps they were very sickly, or their births took place in difficult circumstances. It is almost as if, with the benefit of hindsight, they are marked out from the start for a special purpose.
Then again, saints were commonly unwell or injured. I suppose the point is that God sometimes chooses the weak and poorly to help Him in His purposes, and not always the strong and healthy. Every now and then God turns the values of the world upside down and shows that the weak and poorly still matter.
What marks the saints out from everyone else is their deep faith in Jesus Christ. For the saints, faith is not something to be added-on to an already busy life, and perhaps just as easily dropped. Rather, faith is an integral part of one’s character, running through everything like Hastings through a stick of rock. Sharing things with Jesus is as natural as breathing.
From the lives of the saints, we may also observe that Christian faith is seldom a smooth progression. Some saints have the gift of faith from their earliest years. Others have to be converted to it later on, sometimes after leading rather a rackety life. However faith comes about, all are on a journey or pilgrimage through life to God.
Sometimes, we see saints take a sudden leap forward in the journey of faith: they go somewhere, meet someone, or read something, and this deepens their love and commitment to Jesus Christ. At other times, it can feel as though they are doing the spiritual equivalent of treading water. Both experiences are fine in the Christian life, so long as we have invited God to be in charge of us and our lives.
We often find that saints have been devoted to Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Saints have greatly valued receiving their Lord in Holy Communion.
Saints are not perfect. They say, think and do bad things, all the time, just like the rest of us. They know all about their sins and failings, and are not afraid to confess them. They neither minimize sin, nor exaggerate it. Sin is a consequence of the Fall and of Original Sin, and is part of the human condition. We have to get by as best we can, and that means slipping our hand into the hand of God, repenting, and carrying on.
Saints frequently suffer during their lives on earth. In fact, I’d say that suffering is a nearly universal experience amongst all the saints. They are badly treated by their fellow Christians, who can be jealous, petty-minded, and vindictive. They can be badly treated by the society in which they live. “It’s no surprise that you have so few friends, Lord,” St Teresa of Avila is said to have grumbled one day, “when you treat them so badly!” And yet, when we look back, we frequently see that it is in the moments of suffering that we have grown, as Christians and as human beings.
Despite all this, another characteristic of saints is their cheerfulness. Yes, saints have gloomy moments, as we all do, but they bounce back, because they know that in the end God is in charge and He loves them. I mentioned St Teresa of Avila. When she was in charge of her little community of nuns – and she was well on into her middle age – if she saw that they were getting downhearted, she would get out her tambourine – you couldn’t make this up! – start playing and singing a jolly tune, begin to dance, making a bit of a fool of herself, so the other nuns began to smile, and then she would get them all up, dancing and singing with her, until their worries were put in context. You couldn’t help but love and trust such a person.
Behind all this, there is an understanding that Heaven is our destination and our eternal home. The values of the kingdom of heaven are the true ones – not the values of the kingdoms of this earth. Our task is to be guided by the values of heaven as we live our lives upon earth.
Saints, then, are all sorts of people. They vary a good deal. The common denominator is their love of Jesus. And here’s the important bit for us: God wants each of us to be saints. We make a start by letting God’s love and grace work in us and our lives now.
With my love and prayers,
Father Robert.